Curran connects with flying knee #27.

Two of the three opening acts were short and sweet and the feature bouts went the distance, but it wasn’t hard to figure out who won any of the fights at last night’s Bellator 47. If anything, I’m more confident in the disparity of skill sets featured in the tournament semi-finals than I am the fights where someone got steamrolled. That’s not to say it was a bore to watch, and it’s not to say that the tournament finale won’t impress. It is to say if you missed the action, keep reading and I’ll clue you in.

The combined weight of the two fighters in the evening’s opening bout nearly equaled that of the four tournament competitors. Realizing that fans don’t want to see two big boys huffing and puffing at the start of round two, Zak Jensen and Neil Grove did us a solid and came out swinging in a fight that proved that the best defense is a good offense (well, at least it proved true for Grove). The heavyweights went right to work trading bombs, with Grove dropping in the first five seconds. He secured a single and the two continued to hockey-fight on the ground before Grove went for an ankle lock. Jensen countered by punching Grove in the gut, which reminded “Goliath” how fun it was to punch and he released the hold. A failed triangle attempt by Jensen ended up with Grove in his guard raining down blows and drawing the referee stoppage at 2:00 into the first round.

Like a boss. PicProps: Bellator.com

Bellator 47 pops off this weekend, continuing the featherweight tournament and bridging the gap between season four and five. Unlike some promotions that can’t seem to pronounce “tournament” without fighters getting injured or insulted (or both), Bellator’s grand prix action will roll on in Ontario, Canada, where the contestants will have to brave the bitter arctic cold and vicious penguins as they fight to advance toward a payday and a title shot with current champion (and Baddest Man on the Planet) Joe Warren.

This just in: we’re being told by someone who lives in Canada that it is summer there, and temperatures will be significantly less brutal than we normally expect. We’ll take him at his word, but if anyone can take readings in the area and report back, we’d appreciate it.

Either way, we expect the action to be hot.

For the tourney, Marlon Sandro is matched up with Nazareno Malegarie, and Pat Curran will face Ronnie Mann.

Realizing that beautiful things can be accomplished in the summertime, Bellator kicked off its 8-man featherweight tournament last night on MTV 2. If you happened to miss it, we’ve got a quick recap of how things went down along with a few gifs for your viewing pleasure after the jump.

“I believe you yanks call this a mean mug?” PicProps: Bellator.com

Since we mentioned it yesterday in that blatant vanity post, we’ll go ahead and fill you in with some of the details about Bellator’s plans for the summer. As you may remember, a BFC press release announcing the deal with MTV2 made a vague mention of “a collection of special feature events” on top of two full seasons a year. Details at the time were sketchy, and we weren’t really sure what those special feature events would entail. As the season four tournaments unfolded, we heard more and more about tournament action between seasons, initially referred to as a “mini-tournament”. We’d been thinking that this meant perhaps a couple of four-man brackets, maybe some of those Super Fights that Bellator digs so much.

Man, we were way off. Bjorn Rebney, head honcho of the BFC, has put together another intriguing tournament at 145, and that, ladies and germs, will be your main course for the summer series. If you are interested in that kind of thing, we’ve prepared a short primer on the featherweight tourney, plus a preview of Bellator 46, where the four quarterfinals will kick off in that other Hollywood.

Although we suppose you could come in and just throw poop at the new guy. Whatever.

“It’s always darkest just before the dawn.  Also during a knockout.”

Another day at the office for those tournament-throwin’ characters in Bellator, with an earlier start time meant to stay out of Big Daddy Zuffa’s sun and results guaranteed to make us look like we have no friggin’ clue what we’re talking about.  For the record, the CagePotato picks for the featherweight quarterfinals in Concho, Oklahoma were Larkin, Reis, Karakhanyan, and Straus.  So who’s up, who’s down, and who choked?  If necessary, re-introduce yourselves to the 145ers, then come on in for quick results from the event.

Just don’t mention last night’s UFC event.  Some of us are wearing our Pride shirts in mourning.

(That’s no mean mug, that’s really just Warren’s normal expression.  PicProps:  Bellator.com)

We bid you good morning, Potato Nation, and we present you with our second installment of preview materials for the upcoming Bellator tournaments, this time running down the 145ers set to do battle in March.  By now you should know that Bellator will be airing live on Saturdays on MTV2, so we’re really going to stop telling you.  But don’t come crying to us when your DVR doesn’t magically start recording the fights in the new time slot, all teary-eyed with your bare face hanging out, asking us what went on and who advanced, because we totally won’t even tell you.

Sorry about that.  Listen, go grab some coffee, and venture in past the jump for introductions and videos for all eight featherweights confirmed for the brackets.